(Article published on 4 September 2025, additional editing in 1 September 2026) 

Misinformation is being spread about Boom Festival. Allegations of connections with the State of Israel, inflated numbers of Israeli artists, or invitations to IDF-linked performers are entirely false. Several pages in Portugal and abroad have been circulating a wide range of fabricated claims.

1. Independence and Transparency
 

Boom Festival has no ties (past or present) with the state of Israel. The actions of their leadership have been condemned by the International Criminal Court, the UN and the majority of the world’s population – and are naturally rejected by a peace-oriented cultural organisation like ours.

Boom Festival has never received, directly or indirectly, funds linked to Israel. Another claim is that we developed technologies with a company / festival from that country. Any such claims are baseless, and defamatory.

Boom is produced by a Portuguese-owned cultural company based in Idanha-a-Nova. It is 100% independent, and free from corporate sponsorship.

2. Inclusivity and Legal Framework
 

Boom 2025 welcomed participants from 165 countries. It is an inclusive gathering that does not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, or religion. That is not only who we are, it is also what Portuguese law requires of us. No one is responsible for the passport they were born with. It is open to everyone who comes in peace.

Law 93/2017 of 23 August prohibits discrimination on grounds of racial and ethnic origin, colour, nationality, ancestry, and territory of origin. Article 4 lists among discriminatory practices the refusal or restriction of access to places open to the public, and the refusal to provide goods or services. Denying someone entry to an event, or the ability to buy a ticket, because of their nationality falls within this: it is an administrative offence.

Behind that law stands Article 13 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, the principle of equality, which expressly prohibits privileges or disadvantages based on territory of origin.

Decisions about who may enter Portuguese territory belong to the Portuguese State. Cultural organisations do not make immigration policy, do not enforce it, and have no lawful means of applying nationality-based restrictions of their own. The idea circulating that we could simply refuse entry to people based on where they come from due to the fact they have been part of a military force is discrimination under Portuguese law.

What we can do, we have done and will continue to do: condemn who wages opression; support humanitarian work with people caught in conflicts; and keep reviewing our own practices so they reflect our values.

That clear disaproval is of governments and armies. We repeat: no one is responsible for the passport they were born with. Boomland has no place for the celebration of war or supremacy. 

Entering Boomland means embracing that. It asks something of each of us: to set down the identities that divide, and to leave the flags at the gate. These are acts of coherence and humanism, made with love, for everyone.

Because Only Love Brings Love.

3. Festival Programme: Facts vs Fabrications
 

The wave of recent disinformation has circulated false statistics about Boom’s programme 2025 too:

• Claim: 42% of all artists at Boom are from Israel, and their fees are being paid by the their Ministry of Culture.
   
• Fact: This is entirely false. As an international and multidisciplinary event, the programme included artists from 45 countries, with just 2.8% from Israel. At no point has Boom ever received support from that state.

The booking process is personal, built on direct and frank dialogue. No artist who expressed support for agression was invited in 2025, the Israeli artists on the lineup were advocates of peace, a fundamental requirement for playing at Boom. No artist who has publicly supported oppressive policies has ever been invited, nor will be, and this process will continue as it stands.

Artists from aggressor countries who support their country's actions, or who fail to take a stand in defence of peace and tolerance, will not be invited in 2027. In times of conflicts, we ask more of artists whose countries are at the centre of it because a stage or a festival is a platform, and platforms carry responsibility. For us, humanist values outweigh political contexts.

That is why staying true to our values matters more than ever. Every state or group that wages opression on civilian populations deserves our disapproval, and we say so plainly. We have also put resources o humanitarian initiaves: during the last edition, Boom supported the UK Oxfam delegation and Doctors Without Borders Portugal to cover their humanitarian operations in Gaza, with other crisis zones being studied for 2027. The funds were granted to the organisations' European offices and medical staff. 

And we keep reviewing how we operate – bookings, ticket outlets, suppliers, the humanitarian projects we support – so that every practice reflects the principle that defines Boom. This is a territory of oneness, peace and love.

 

4. Ticket Sales and Current Context
 

This situation is far broader than the Middle East. Militarisation is advancing in Europe too, through NATO's rearmament and the increasingly belligerent rhetoric of its leadership, disconnected with most of the population, while political extremes grow across the continent.

In light of the current geopolitical climate, Boom has decided that for the 2025 and 2027 editions it will not appoint physical ticket sellers in countries currently engaged in attacking others; for the current edition, the USA, Israel, and Russia. We act where we legitimately can, in our commercial and cultural choices.

We are living through one of the most violent periods since the end of the Second World War: more than 50 active armed conflicts, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program: from Ukraine to Gaza, from Sudan to Myanmar, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the last twelve months alone, more than 240,000 people have died as victims of political violence. 

Our position is clear and has always been the same: we stand for peace and love.

 

5. Actions Matter More Than Social Media Statements

Our commitment to peace is not rhetorical. We actively support humanitarian causes: last edition that support went to the Oxfam delegation in the UK to cover their medical activities in Gaza, and to Doctors Without Borders Portugal to supply medication and support medical staff for their operations there as well. No festival is obliged to support humanitarian initiatives, yet Boom has consistently done so.

This is how a cultural organisation makes a concrete contribution to easing the suffering caused by conflicts: by supporting those on the ground saving lives. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and other oppressed peoples, while also stressing that not all the people of the USA, Russia, Israel, and other countries with opressive policies should not be conflated with the portion of their societies that supports their belligerent elites. As human beings, we are more than our cultural identities.

Nor should it be forgotten that we set up a helpline for the victims after what happened at the Nova psytrance party on 7 October who were also subject of a traumatic incident.

More details are available at Peace, Truth and Clarity and Thank You for Your Cashless Support. 
 

6. In Defence of Psytrance
 

Psytrance belongs to no single nation. To tie it to one country is a stereotype: misleading, and harmful to an international community built on love, peace and freedom; one that has always made room for people of every nationality, culture, faith, sexual orientation, and way of living.

The claim that this scene is full of people that gave been committing genocide in Gaza is not only false; it misunderstands what this culture is.

Like every global music scene (techno, hip-hop, jazz, rock, etc.) psytrance is made of people from everywhere: hundreds of nationalities. To reduce a community of hundreds of thousands or millions to a political or identity label is exactly the kind of generalisation that feeds the conflicts many say want to end.

Psytrance grew out of the countercultures of the mid-twentieth century. Shaped by community, expression, interchange with spiritual traditions and by a sharp critique of the dominant order, it has for decades given people a space to question the society they were handed, to search for their own truth, and – for many - to choose a life outside conformity.

The tactic being used against it is an old one, and we recognise where it comes from: take a group, attach it to a crime or behaviour, and let the association do the rest. It is the same logic that racist, supremacist, and extreme movements apply to migrants, to people of colour, to anyone marked as different.

We repudiate any attempt to associate psytrance, or electronic dance music more broadly, with a regime that violates humanitarian law, or to entertain the absurd claim of its "militarisation", simply because some of that country's citizens also like this music.

Music brings people together. Psytrance is, and has always been, a celebration of peace, human connection and freedom of spirit. 

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Spreading falsehoods does not build peace; this persecution and fabrication of fake facts fuels hatred, and division. 

The world is in urgent need of healing.

And healing begins with acknowledging suffering on all sides, rejecting dehumanisation, and choosing love.

Only Love Brings Love